Police and prosecutors examining allegations of a botched investigation and cover-up in the Jang Yun-gi case are expanding their probe to the National Office of Investigation (NOI), which oversees the Gwangju Gwangsan Police Station. Park Sung-joo, the former NOI chief who ordered that Jang's sex crime and homicide cases be investigated separately, said it was "a routine instruction," flatly denying allegations of a cover-up.
In a phone call with the Seoul Economic Daily on the 24th of this month, Park said, "There is a reason why the work of the criminal affairs division and the women and youth division is separated. In this case, since the investigation had to continue while protecting the victim, the sex crime portion was assigned to the women and youth division, which specializes in investigating relationship-based crimes." He added, "In the case of the homicide charge, the police detention period is only 10 days, so there was effectively only a week, and to meet that deadline, we had no choice but to divide the investigation by charge among the responsible divisions."
Park's position is that he was aware of the sex crime circumstances in Jang's offense and had no reason to cover it up. From the early stages of the case, both the report history and the reports contained content related to the sex crime, so not only the officer in charge but the majority of police who knew about the case were aware of the fact. Because it is important to prevent secondary harm in relationship-based crimes, hastily applying charges before whether additional harm had occurred was clearly confirmed could itself amount to a botched investigation. For this reason, Park's position is that the criminal affairs division was assigned to investigate the homicide charge while maintaining confidentiality regarding the sex crime, and the women and youth division was assigned to handle the relationship-based crime portion. "I do not recall using the terms merged investigation or separated investigation, and I only gave a routine instruction to investigate within the relevant function according to the charge," he said.
Earlier, during the investigation by prosecutors and police, statements emerged that the frontline investigation team at the Gwangju Gwangsan Police Station handling the Jang Yun-gi case at the time had sought to jointly investigate a sexual assault that Jang committed against a Vietnamese woman two days before he committed the offense, but that the NOI ordered a separate investigation through the Gwangju Metropolitan Police Agency. Allegations have been raised that Park, who was the NOI chief at the time, relayed a message to the Gwangju agency's violent crimes section chief through the NOI's violent crimes section chief to investigate the two cases separately.
The National Police Agency's "Jang Yun-gi Case Fact-Finding Special Investigation Unit" and prosecutors, who have launched an investigation targeting "higher-ups" including the then-Gwangju Gwangsan Police Station chief (senior superintendent general), the NOI's violent crime investigation section chief, and its sexual violence investigation section chief, are now pointing the tip of their investigative blade at Park as well. It is expected that they will decide whether the investigation will expand to superiors involved in the reporting and command chain, examining issues such as whether the NOI's investigative direction was a routine investigative method and whether it affected the process of applying the general homicide charge.
However, observations are emerging within the legal community and the police that it would be difficult to conclude that Park ordered the separate investigation to cover up the case. This is because it is not hard to find cases in which, when the referral deadlines for each charge differ, the investigative functions are divided and then referred separately. In addition, it is generally the case that the NOI does not go so far as to instruct on the specific application of charges in matters investigated by frontline teams. Not only the report submitted to Park three days after the incident occurred, but also two pages of an investigation report that police uploaded to the criminal justice information system on May 13, contained content indicating suspicion of a charge of rape-homicide. Police at the time also reportedly wrote an opinion that, since it was difficult to prove a crime for sexual purposes with the evidence secured, they were applying the crime of homicide under the criminal law.
A senior police officer in Seoul said, "It is important to clarify the misconduct of the frontline investigation team, such as the Gwangsan station investigation team leader failing to secure key pieces of evidence despite discovering them." He added, "Investigating separately by criminal affairs and women and youth is a routine method. There is no reason for higher-ups such as the NOI to cover up the matter, is there?"
However, some argue that given the gravity of the matter, there was no need for the NOI to order a separate investigation. A police officer working at a frontline police station in Seoul said, "Since whether there was intent to commit a sex crime has a significant impact on the sentence, additional matters related to the homicide case should have been investigated together." He added, "Because it was a time-sensitive matter, having the team originally conducting the investigation proceed would also have been advantageous in terms of efficiency."
Meanwhile, prosecutors on the same day extended the detention period of Park (57), a police captain and violent crimes team leader at the Gwangju Gwangsan Police Station, who was detained on charges including failing to secure key pieces of evidence while investigating the Jang Yun-gi case. Captain Park, the violent crimes team leader in the Gwangsan station's criminal affairs division, was the person who led the Jang Yun-gi case investigation. He is accused of failing to secure a damaged sex doll found in Jang's rented room immediately after the incident occurred last May and cable ties spotted in Jang's vehicle, despite seeing them. The Gwangju District Prosecutors' Office plans to extend the detention period by 10 days to conduct additional investigation and then indict Captain Park early next month.
